Spilled Ink: A Pesach Story

Two representatives of a town in close proximity to that of Rabbi Aryeh Leib Yellin, author of the Yifei Einayim, traveled to the rav to sell all the chometz in their town. The rav sat down and began to meticulously record every item of chometz on their list, including all of the names and details of the owners, and the locations where the chometz would be stored. After filling an entire page with all of the details of the Jewish-owned chometz in their town, he was just about to read the document to them when one of the simple Jews accidentally knocked over the bottle of ink. The two representatives of the other town were petrified and wondered how they would endure the rav's scathing rebuke for this blunder—not only had they put all of the rav's time and effort to waste, but they had even deprived him of a full bottle of ink, itself an expensive commodity. To their surprise, Rabbi Yellin did not say a word. He got up, brought a new sheet of paper and rewrote the entire list from memory. He then began to read it back to them. To their surprise, it included every name and every possession they had told him before the ink was spilled. His granddaughter related that, similarly, when a child once knocked over a bottle of ink onto a page filled with chiddushim, Rabbi Yellin had been the one to calm the child down. Despite the immense time taken to write the page, all he would say is, "With Hashem's help, I will write it over!"